Pledge as cruise firm halts trade

16 July 2011 Last updated at 10:44 GMT Gill's Cruise Centre's premises in Cardiff Thousands of people booked onto cruises have been told they will still be able to go on holiday after a Cardiff-based travel company stopped trading.

Gill's Cruise Centre took bookings for operators including P&O, Cunard and Royal Caribbean.

Travel association Abta says it has withdrawn the firm's membership due to "a financial failure".

Gill's could not be contacted for comment and its website said it could not accept new booking queries.

Customer Brian Jenkins said he had visited the company's shop in Cardiff on Friday after hearing they were facing potential financial problems.

The company, which has two premises in Cardiff and one in London, was established in 1957

Mr Jenkins said he was hopeful that the trip he had booked for his wife and himself to the Norwegian fjords will still be going ahead.

"I'm going to ring P&O to clarify there are no problems as soon as I get home," he added.

Abta, which represents travel companies, said any cruise booked through Gill's would be honoured and was fully financially protected.

Customers were advised that they could expect to hear from their cruise line. Any who wanted to contact their cruise line could do so by using details on their confirmation invoice.

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Gill's is the most recent in a long list of travel companies that have suffered as a result of the economic downturn”

End Quote Rochelle Turner Which? Travel It said people who may have booked their flight and cruise directly with Gill's under their Air Travel Organisers' Licensing (Atol) licence should contact the Civil Aviation Authority.

If the cruise and flight have been booked with different suppliers they were advised to contact the cruise company.

A message on Gill's website said it regretted that it was unable to accept new booking inquiries.

It added: "Our existing clients with queries should telephone our client service department on 0845 460 6094."

The company is described on its website as "family-owned and established in 1957".

Booking advice

It has a sales office in Paddington Central, London, while in Cardiff it has a client services team based at Llanishen and a retail centre in Rhiwbina.

One company no longer working with Gill's is Carnival UK, which includes P&O Cruises, Cunard, Princess Cruises and Seabourn Cruises.

Carnival UK's sales and customer services director Giles Hawke said his company severed the agency relationship with Gill's earlier in the week week because of increasing concerns about its financial position.

He added that if customers had booked a Carnival cruise with Gill's their holiday was safe.

Rochelle Turner, head of research for Which? Travel, said the travel industry had been through some turbulent times over the past two years.

"Gill's is the most recent in a long list of travel companies that have suffered as a result of the economic downturn," she said.

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SSE halts all UK doorstep sales

8 July 2011 Last updated at 11:45 GMT SSE said commission-based doorstep selling was "no longer an effective way" to gain customers Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) has halted all of its doorstep sales activity in the UK, with the loss of up to 900 jobs.

The move comes two months after a court found SSE's sales agents had used misleading sales scripts when talking to people on their doorsteps.

The firm said commission-based doorstep selling was "no longer an effective way" to gain customers.

It will continue other activities such as online and direct mail sales.

SSE was found guilty at Guildford Crown Court in May of tricking people into switching from their existing energy firms, between September 2008 and July 2009.

It had claimed they were paying too much to their current suppliers when this was not the case.

SSE was found guilty on two counts out of seven charges brought under the unfair trading practices regulations.

Suspended

The company, which is appealing the conviction, announced it had decided to suspend all of its doorstep sales activity, with immediate effect.

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The reality is that the world has moved on. We understand that fewer people are willing to engage with traditional doorstep sellers”

End Quote Alistair Phillips-Davies SSE It now expects to close permanently its existing doorstep sales operations, "subject to consultation with affected employees".

The energy supplier cited low confidence in the way companies sold energy on the doorstep, and the way in which sales staff were remunerated, as reasons why commission-based doorstep selling was no longer an effective way to gain customers for the long term.

SSE also said the sales process "rightly" required increasingly significant customer safeguards and customers had "a growing need for objective information and help" to enable them to use efficiently the energy they bought.

The company plans to continue its venue, telephone, online and direct mail sales and customer advice activities and extend its range of affinity partnerships, which include M&S Energy.

Energy advisers

It also intends to establish over the next year a nationwide network of community-based energy advisers.

Alistair Phillips-Davies, generation and supply director of SSE, said: "By encouraging customers to switch suppliers, commission-based doorstep sales have played an important and useful part in the development of Britain's competitive energy supply market.

"The reality is, however, that the world has moved on. We understand that fewer people are willing to engage with traditional doorstep sellers."

He added: "Changes in products, services and processes mean the energy market has matured to a stage where we believe that commission-based doorstep sales is no longer a sustainable way of securing energy customers for the long term.

"Energy companies need to earn and retain trust."

SSE said it would be consulting with potentially affected employees over ways of avoiding compulsory redundancies.

It said its objective was to minimise the number of jobs lost, through the retraining and redeployment within SSE of as many employees as possible.

'Vigorous' campaign

Surrey County Council trading standards office, which successfully prosecuted SSE in May, said it had been "vigorously campaigning" for the last five years to encourage householders never to deal with cold-calling doorstep traders.

Kay Hammond, from Surrey County Council, commented: "There are plenty of ways for companies to promote their services but we do not believe cold calling should be one of them.

"We advise anyone approached by an unsolicited salesperson on their doorstep to decline their offer."

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